Agenda item

The committee considered the head of finance's report which set out Cabinet's draft budget proposals for 2015/16.  The budget included the revenue budget for 2015/16, the capital programme for 2015/16 to 2019/20, the prudential indicators (tabled at the meeting), and the medium term financial plan 2015/16 to 2019/20.  

The committee asked questions on the detail contained within the budget and noted that:

• ?the accounting rules dictated the way items were presented in the budget and it was accepted this could give rise to some confusion, one example being the need to reverse out the planning income budget 
• officers would provide detail after the meeting on the reasons behind the proposed net reduction in the waste budget 
• the capital expenditure allocated to the leisure facilities resulted from contractual commitments 
• the income from planning applications was a cautious estimate 
• this year's budget had removed any uncertain expenditure from individual budgets and included additional provision in the contingency budget instead 
• an allowance had been made this coming year to part fund grass cutting on highway verges as the county council had cut its budget on this 
• there was provision for an additional tree officer post; officers would confirm outside of the meeting whether this post would provide advice on diseased Ash trees 
• new posts to assist with accelerated housing growth in the Science Vale area were being funded by government grant, and therefore were not shown as growth bids in this budget; officers agreed to include a separate note on this to the Council meeting in February 
• unspent capital expenditure in 2014/15 had been carried forward to 2015/16 
• officers would provide detail of the expenditure on improving public conveniences in 2014/15 and that planned for 2015/16 

The committee thanked the officers for their work in preparing the draft budget.  The committee also thanked officers for holding an all-councillor budget briefing last week, which allowed the committee to conduct better scrutiny of the budget proposals.  

RESOLVED: to ask officers to provide further detail on the questions raised above where detailed answers could not be provided at the meeting.